Jenson Button was frustrated not to make it out of Q2 in Korea, but the McLaren man will at least have a free choice of tyres from his 11th starting spot.

Button made a mistake on his first run and then came across yellows on his second, and thus wasn’t able to improve.

“On the option tyre the balance wasn’t as good as the prime,” said Button. “The prime was working really well, and obviously the pace was really good yesterday on the long run on high fuel. It’s a bit frustrating because it was so good yesterday. But we’ve still got that pace and from 11th you still have a lot of options, because you still have new tyres, both compounds.

“I made a little mistake – or quite a big one – at the start of Q2 in the last sector, and then the last sector on the last lap was yellow, so I wasn’t able to go quicker. Disappointing, but I’m still looking forward to an exciting race.”

Button is confident that McLaren has a good package for the Sunday.

“The long run on Friday was great, I was very happy with it. We didn’t really know what to expect on that tyre. Obviously the supersoft on a circuit that’s very demanding, there’s normally very high degradation, but we were able to look after the tyre very well, and be consistent with the lap times, but it’s very tricky because it’s not just the rear tyres, it’s front and rears that you are struggling with in terms of wear and degradation.

“It depends on what balance you have on the car. We found a good balance yesterday, and I hope we can carry that through to tomorrow.”